The finals were in the afternoon.
Before the finals, there were still two semifinal matches to decide who would advance. Without a doubt, Fushiguro and Yuji Itadori couldn't afford to lose.
For these two matches, Mahiru didn't pull any pranks; instead, she used the time to keep handling the other matter on her plate—"posting a missing-family notice for Yuji Itadori."
And along the way, she waited for the other "actors" to arrive.
"Hey, do we really have to do this kind of thing?" After hearing Mahiru's explanation and arrangements, Jogo's eyebrows twitched. "You called me and Hanami all the way out here just for this?"
"Of course," Mahiru said with a grin. "Don't you think it's fun?"
"It really is fun." Todo Aoi laughed off to the side, arms folded. "I'm in."
The finals were a battle between Yuji Itadori and Fushiguro.
The audience was mostly ordinary people. To give them a real thrill, you couldn't just throw fists. They'd watched fistfights for several matches already; another fistfight, no matter how dazzling, wouldn't excite anyone.
So what mattered was special effects.
A special-effects blockbuster. And the kind of effects ordinary people could actually see.
That was why she'd called in Todo.
Ordinary people couldn't see Cursed Energy, but they could always see two people swapping places out of thin air.
What's more, [Boogie Woogie] really was flashy and cool.
But there was a problem with this too.
Yuji Itadori and Todo had to both be on the stage at the same time. Todo hiding under the ring and clapping wouldn't look good.
But what excuse could Todo use to butt into this match?
Was Todo the Demon King supposed to suddenly barge into the finals, forcing Yuji Itadori and Fushiguro to band together against a common foe?
That sort of plot development would be way too kiddie.
The method Mahiru ultimately chose was…
"What is that?!——" Through the commentator's loudspeaker, Mahiru's voice rang out, utterly shocked. "Behind contestant Yuji Itadori—there's an incredibly dense aura of a curse!"
"Contestant Yuji Itadori, as he takes the stage, is completely different from before… Could it be he's finally about to reveal his true power?... But why is the aura so evil?!…"
At the finals venue, the crowd roared.
On one side of the ring, Yuji Itadori slowly climbed onto the stage, every step heavy. Behind him, a black cursed aura, like tangible smoke, surged toward the heavens, dark clouds bearing down.
"So pungent!" "What is this smell…" "Ugh…"
This was black mist Mahiru had made herself, all to create a scene of curses and grudges soaring to the sky.
This way, even the audience could feel the evil of the thing behind Yuji Itadori.
"Could it be… I get it now! This is the legendary [that kind of situation]!"
"The legendary Special Grade sorcerer Yuta Okkotsu once used an enormous amount of Cursed Energy to curse his dead lover, turning her into a [Vengeful Cursed Spirit] and keeping her in this world… And the Cursed Spirit pattern before our very eyes is so very similar to Yuta Okkotsu's."
"I once heard that the Tiger of West Junior High had a sorcerer best friend, the two of them inseparable… But half a month ago, this sworn brother died unexpectedly on a mission, and those in the know within the jujutsu world have kept their lips sealed about it ever since…"
Mahiru's voice was utterly shocked, her acting bursting forth—she was even trembling.
"So that's how it is… So that's how it is! I understand now! The truth of the matter!…"
Yuji Itadori fully took the stage.
The black mist behind him surged completely skyward.
The pungent smell rushed into the nostrils of everyone present, yet not a single person looked away from that enormous, evil mass of black mist.
Everyone was drawn in as the black mist spun into a vortex.
"Just like Yuta Okkotsu! The Tiger of West Junior High also used his own curse to turn his friend, who should have died, into a Cursed Spirit, and kept him here!——"
Whoosh——the black mist burst apart, scattering into the sky.
With black mist coiled around his features, Todo Aoi stretched out both arms, emerging from the vortex with a sickly grin.
"Behold! The [Vengeful Cursed Spirit]—Todo Aoi!!"
If Todo wanted to step onto the stage, he couldn't appear as a "human." On a stage meant for a fair one-on-one duel between Fushiguro and Yuji Itadori, it was best for Todo to show up as "Yuji Itadori's ability."
So Mahiru had naturally thought of the whole Yuta angle.
"So something like that really happened?!"
"To stay by his best friend's side, he actually accepted a curse… that's just too moving…" "So the Tiger of West Junior High…"
Todo Aoi emerged from the black mist behind Yuji Itadori, his whole body wrapped in chaos, and with that unrestrained grin, he looked like a demon crawling up out of the abyss.
But after hearing the "story" of Yuji Itadori and Todo, although the people were indeed frightened and overwhelmed by the sight before them, even more than that, they were deeply moved.
Mahiru spoke up at just the right moment, her voice sorrowful: "So that's it… No wonder contestant Yuji Itadori entered the tournament. He actually has no interest in the prize money at all… Perhaps he entered only because he wants to awaken the memories of his dead friend through battle…"
Mahiru was making it all up.
But her words really were brimming with emotion.
More and more people were swept up in it, muttering "now this is true brotherhood" as they wiped away tears.
Seeing the audience react this way, Yuji Itadori knew they'd passed the test, breathed a sigh of relief, and shot Todo a furtive glance.
"I'm going all out now!" And Todo struck a battle pose facing Fushiguro Maki, who had climbed onto the far end of the ring, his grin overflowing with fighting spirit. "My bestbestbrother!"
This guy was on a completely different wavelength from everyone around him.
He'd even fully started letting himself loose.
Honestly speaking, in a lot of situations Todo's behavior really didn't seem like that of a normal person.
This guy was so overexcited that he didn't even need to deliberately act out the state of a Cursed Spirit to come across as inhuman.
"How touching… As the commentator, I dearly hope the Tiger of West Junior High and his good brother can win this match, but… things never go as one wishes…"
Mahiru's voice took on a sobbing tone. "But their opponent is the current head of the Zenin estate, one of the Three Great Families… a genius girl who'd already mastered [Domain Expansion] at the age of seven…"
Fushiguro had just stepped onto the stage; hearing Mahiru's words, she nearly stumbled.
Seven years old—what the heck?!
You're spouting nonsense this exaggerated—are the audience really going to buy it?!
"Domain Expansion?!" "For real…? She could do Domain Expansion at seven…" "She's just a genius…" ——Oh my god, they actually bought it?!
Fushiguro was dumbfounded.
But she actually hadn't realized that, in the eyes of the audience now, Mahiru's identity as the blue-haired Cursed Spirit had already long been exposed.
After her earlier brawl with Kinji Hakari, the girl had stopped hiding herself.
She was now the "Angel" who had saved Tokyo and all of Japan's countless innocent citizens—her credibility score was sky-high, so whatever she said, the audience believed.
They didn't doubt it; they were just purely shocked.
Because Domain Expansion was the very pinnacle of jujutsu!
Domain Expansion at seven years old?!
Truly, you can't judge a person by their appearance!
"Right? Who could believe it…" Mahiru's voice wavered. "Just going by her looks, if you told me she couldn't even beat a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit, I'd believe that too…"
An angry "#" mark popped up on Fushiguro's forehead.
"And rumor has it that her Domain isn't an ordinary Domain either, but the legendary open-type Domain." Mahiru went on with effortless eloquence. "Contestant Fushiguro entered this tournament in order to pay for the medical treatment of her only family, her sister, her sister… She has no choice but to need a large amount of prize money…"
On and on she went, spinning wild tales—stuff like "her father was attacked by an evil curse user, leaving her an orphan," stuff like "when she was young she ran into a Cursed Spirit and lost the most important thing to her"…
On one hand she hyped up that Fushiguro could perform Domain Expansion and wielded a hundred and eight kinds of Shadow Techniques.
On the other, she painted Fushiguro as oh-so terribly pitiful.
The audience grew solemn with respect, and felt pity well up as well.
Wasn't this just that whatever-it's-called… the legendary "beautiful, strong, and tragic" type?!
Powerful, miserable, and a beautiful girl to boot.
For a moment, the cheers of support for Fushiguro swelled to overwhelming proportions.
Meanwhile, Kinji Hakari and Kirara Hoshi were also watching all of this from a VIP vantage point inside a glass box suite high up in the gymnasium.
"Is this really going to work?"
Kinji Hakari was himself a veteran at writing scripts for fixed matches.
He admitted that Mahiru could spin a yarn better than he could, and make things up better too, but he felt she'd overlooked the single most important point.
"The more exaggerated the hype, the harder it is to make it all add up, right?" Kirara Hoshi rubbed their chin. "No matter how good the script is, it still needs good actors to carry it, doesn't it?"
What they meant was: hype was fine to a point. For instance, saying Fushiguro Maki could perform Domain Expansion—that was no problem.
But if you claimed Fushiguro could do an open-type Domain, then if she couldn't actually produce an open-type Domain later, wouldn't the whole thing be exposed?
Besides, hyping up anything else would be fine, so why hype up the Domain?
Fistfighting wasn't fun to watch, sure, but wouldn't a Domain be even less watchable?
The audience couldn't see a Domain at all.
If Todo and Yuji Itadori's position-swapping teamwork was the highlight of this match, then without a doubt, a Domain Expansion would be a flop that left the audience confused and even bored—the moment it came to opening a Domain, this match would lose all its appeal.
Right at this moment, Kinji Hakari suddenly felt that handing the script for the finals over to Mahiru might not have been a very correct decision. This girl didn't seem as reliable as he'd imagined. But now, there was no room left for regret.
After both contestants had made their entrances, the battle began.
"Both sides have reasons they can't afford to lose; both are formidable contestants. As for who wins and who loses, in the end, we can only leave the verdict to the arena!" Mahiru announced loudly. "The finals everyone's been waiting for—begin now!"
As her voice fell, Fushiguro had already raised her hands to form a seal.
Seeing the girl's opening stance, Kinji Hakari and Kirara Hoshi's pupils shrank.
"Hold on, you've got to be kidding?!"
Was she about to open a Domain already?!
This would ruin the whole viewing experience of the match!
"Domain Expansion!—"
Yes—at the start of this final match, there were no thrown fists, no pleasantries. The instant the starting gun sounded, Fushiguro's very first move was Domain Expansion!
This was Mahiru's arrangement!
"Chimera Shadow Garden!"
The entire audience was stunned; Kinji Hakari and Kirara Hoshi were stunned too. Shadows spread out from beneath Fushiguro's feet, expanding in all directions.
But the reason Kinji Hakari and Kirara Hoshi were stunned came from a fact they'd discovered—these shadows weren't a Domain at all, and the aura within them didn't come from Fushiguro Maki. They were some kind of animated black, muddy liquid, disguised as shadows.
"The Domain is fake!" Kinji Hakari realized. "Someone else is manipulating the liquid!"
—It was Mahiru!
Fushiguro appeared to be performing Domain Expansion, but in reality she hadn't done a single thing.
Instead, it was Mahiru, far off in the distance, whose eyes flickered with Cursed Energy.
Those shadows were also props Mahiru had made, much like the black mist.
The liquid surged, rose, and spread, fanning out across the ring and even washing over the soles of every audience member's shoes.
"What a huge Domain!" Mahiru hyped wildly. "So this is an open-type Domain?!"
How would the audience know what an open-type Domain even was? Most of them had only come into close contact with so-called jujutsu for the first time today.
Holy crap, so impressive.
Holy crap, so flashy and cool.
First a [Vengeful Cursed Spirit], then an open-type Domain—when had the audience ever witnessed anything like this?
Their heads were all left spinning, just like that.
So Fushiguro's eyes flashed sharply, and she made a series of fancy, flashy hand seals, then slapped both hands down on the ground.
"Come forth!" the girl shouted. "Shikigami!"
"Hold on," Kinji Hakari suddenly recalled something and turned his head to look at Kirara Hoshi. "Just now, how many kinds of Shadow Techniques did that blue-haired Cursed Spirit say Fushiguro had?"
"Uh… as I recall… it wasn't ten kinds she said." Kirara Hoshi blinked, suddenly going a little blank. "If memory serves, what she said seemed to be… [a hundred and eight kinds of Shadow Techniques]…?"
And so, after the black liquid had spread from all directions, it gathered together up in the sky.
Countless Shikigami monsters of all sorts of bizarre, grotesque shapes began to tumble down out of the black curtain directly overhead.
Clattering and crashing down, just like rain.
____
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